The understanding of the neural basis of limb apraxia (deficits in performing previously learned skilled movements) has benefited greatly from cognitive research on gesture processing and recognition, but the influence of this research on the treatment of apraxia is limited (Cantagallo et al., 2012). In our view, it would be desirable that this field of research have an impact also on treatment...

Although apraxia is one of the most frequent signs in corticobasal degeneration, the phenomenology of this disorder has not been formally examined. Hence 10 patients with corticobasal degeneration were studied with a standardised evaluation for different types of apraxia. To minimise the confounding effects of the primary motor disorder, apraxia was assessed in the least affected limb. Whereas ...

This study examined early features of the heritable phenotype associated with childhood apraxia-of-speech (CAS). We compared speech and language development from 9 to 24 months of age in eight children at familial risk of CAS to that of eight infants with no such family history. At-risk infants scored lower on expressive language, speech development, and fine motor skills. Results support a bro...

A 74-year-old, left-handed man presented with a rapidly evolving loss of strength in his right leg associated with difficulty in walking. MR images disclosed an extensive left hemisphere tumor. A neuropsychological examination revealed that language was broadly normal but that the patient presented with severe nonlinguistic abnormalities, including hemineglect (both somatic and spatial), constr...

A common suggested treatment for verbal apraxia is repetition, and the use of slow speech. The required slow speech may be attained by time-scaling ordinary-speed speech. However, when used for this purpose, the quality of the expanded speech must be of a very high quality to be of pedagogical benefit. This paper describes a new method of time-scaling based on the knowledge of speech characteri...

When pantomiming gestures to verbal command, the overall production of body-part-as-object (BPO) errors is differentially affected by age and educational level in normal subjects. The higher overall frequency of BPO with age may be related to difficulties in the inhibition of the automatic activation of tool emblems (i.e., the BPO) instead of the appropriate hand posture to hold the tool. Howev...

Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by asymmetric parkinsonism associated with apraxia, cortical sensory loss, and alien-limb phenomenon. Neuropsychological testing in patients with CBD typically shows deficits in executive functions, praxis, language, and visuospatial functioning, but not in memory. We report a CBD patient with severely imp...

friedreich’s ataxia (frda) is a rare autosomal recessive spinocerebellar ataxia which in the majority of cases is associated with a gaa-trinucleotide repeat expansion in the first intron of frataxin gene located on chromosome 9. the clinical features include progressive gait and limb ataxia, cerebellar dysarthria, neuropathy, optic atrophy, and loss of vibration and proprioception. ataxia with ...

The definition of apraxia specifies that the disturbance of performed skilled movements cannot be explained by the more elemental motor disorders typical of patients with movement disorders. Generally this does not present a significant diagnostic problem when dealing with 'higher-level' praxic disturbances (e.g. ideational apraxia), but it can be a major confound in establishing the presence o...